FS#68751 - Add grub back
Attached to Project:
Release Engineering
Opened by Tom Yan (tom.ty89) - Thursday, 26 November 2020, 07:58 GMT
Last edited by David Runge (dvzrv) - Thursday, 17 February 2022, 13:36 GMT
Opened by Tom Yan (tom.ty89) - Thursday, 26 November 2020, 07:58 GMT
Last edited by David Runge (dvzrv) - Thursday, 17 February 2022, 13:36 GMT
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Details
The reason that it got removed was invalid. There's the
--boot-directory switch. Chroot was never necessary for
grub-install. Also it (wrongly) assumeed that the chroot
have the grub package and/or the availability of Internet.
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This task depends upon
Closed by David Runge (dvzrv)
Thursday, 17 February 2022, 13:36 GMT
Reason for closing: Fixed
Additional comments about closing: Grub has been added back to the releng profile in https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/a rchiso/-/commit/2f88ba3cc103aa2b170b8334 94be8722fb0e3d45
Thursday, 17 February 2022, 13:36 GMT
Reason for closing: Fixed
Additional comments about closing: Grub has been added back to the releng profile in https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/a rchiso/-/commit/2f88ba3cc103aa2b170b8334 94be8722fb0e3d45
Can you please elaborate what exactly you are referring to?
This has indeed been removed [1].
So, you are saying that `grub-install --boot-directory <path/to/mounted/system>` is able to install the grub images properly.
If this is correct, we can of course add it back!
[1] https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso/-/commit/32eef254b670b7855bf9480ef22dab58c5f2114f
The thing is, even if it's not like "highly likely", there are chances one wants to rescue or whatsoever an Arch or non-Arch/non-Linux system with the ArchISO. I really don't see why it should be omitted (especially when we are not after an ISO that can fit on a CD-R anymore, and there are a lot more "crap for corner-cases (or not even)" (tmux, dnsmasq, mc, openssh...).
Honestly, this sounds like system misconfiguration to me. The bootloader should be installed and managed on the system itself, not from outside of the system.
And it's only misconfiguration to you because you are being subjective (or even stereotyping). One can totally be using and managing a grub on a drive that is used to boot an (Arch) installation on another drive (that can have no bootloader or bootloader package installed at all) and has grub and only grub on it. (And it's not just for fun)
There were even cases that installing grub inside a (arch-)chroot is problematic (although they might be flaws that have been fixed). The point is, chrooting doesn't help the process at all. Even with the most typical case, you can install the package and update the real bootloader later (like you don't need to pacstrap firefox or whatsoever).
While it might be *useful* to have the bootloader package installed for debugging or editing configuration, it's not necessary -- e.g. I haven't ever changed my grub bootloader in the several years my system has been installed, while the Arch infrastructure rendered itself unbootable because it thought it needed to "manage" and periodically reinstall the bootloader and did so with a buggy version of grub.
> It's not a matter of "don't see why it should be omitted", it's a matter of "why should it be there". Two very different perspectives.
In this case, it was previously there since 2012, the commit message doesn't state why but it's reasonable to assume "so people can use it under diverse conditions".
It seems plausible to add it back, especially given it's less a matter of "why include it", and more "why backpedal on including it using technical arguments that lack perspective".
P.S. Just like what Eli said, the package is for the "admin job", which is way more required on an "admin installation" (i.e. the ISO) than a "user installation". To me, the reasons having the package installed are: 1. so that it pops up on `pacman -Syu` when there's a new build/release (i.e. notification), 2. i *might be* "admin'ting" stuff with my "user installation".
@Scimmia: It is entirely possible that our judgement call to remove it has been based on false information.
Besides a few mb in size it doesn't cost us anything to add it back.
https://xkcd.com/1172/
An additional note: just because many people do not know the `--boot-directory` switch of grub-install or how to / that they can write a simple and clean grub.cfg doesn't mean that "it is not supposed to be used like that", which is the only piece of false information with this regard.
In fact as per the purpose of the image, all the bootloader packages are some the least that should be excluded / removed from it.